Francisco de Goya (b. 1746, Fuentedetodos)

Witches Flight

ca. 1798, oil on canvas, 43.5 x 30.5 cm.

Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, marked as public domain.

Three figures hover in the air, holding the body of a naked man who is either dead or in a deep trance. The group’s pointed caps mark them out as people who have been accused of witchcraft or heresy by the Spanish Inquisition. Underneath them, a figure dressed in the clothes of a farmer lies on the floor, covering his ears. Another stumbles blindly away covering his head with a cloth and making a gesture which was believed to ward off the evil eye. A donkey symbolising ignorance watches the scene from the sidelines. Like the Witches Sabbath, the painting is an angry response to widespread accusations of witchcraft by the Spanish Inquisition, appearing to give real substance to folktales about witches and devils which circulated widely in rural Spain.